Monday, December 12, 2016

The Independent: "While short-term measures alert Londoners to air pollution that is already high, our car-centric culture needs to be challenged to permanently tackle air pollution, not just deal with it on 'spike’ days."

Friday, December 9, 2016

Paris is so smoggy that the city will pay for your bus fare - The Washington Post: "On Thursday, only cars with even-number license plates were allowed to drive, in an effort to limit traffic emissions. On Wednesday, only those with odd-number license plates were allowed. Public transportation has been free since Tuesday. It is the fourth time in 20 years that Paris has had to impose this sort of traffic ban in response to dangerous pollution levels. The free public transport is costing the city an estimated $4.3 million a day, according to the Local news outlet."

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

SWI swissinfo.ch: "Over half of Swiss workers use public transport to get to work – compared to 34% of Europeans – and they feel less stressed than if they had taken their car, a survey has revealed.
Around 20% of Swiss commuters who use public transport say they feel stressed when they arrive at their place of work. This compares to 32% of car drivers, a Europe-wide survey by the PageGroup recruitment company, published on Tuesday, has found."

Policy manager Emma Perring told a ZetTrans meeting on Friday that a total of nine people has so far taken part, with seven of them subsequently gaining employment and the two others on their way to getting jobs.

The pilot - believed to be one of the first of its kind in Scotland - stemmed directly from research from the recent Tackling Inequalities Commission, which found that the cost of public transport was a pertinent barrier behind people accessing opportunities in Shetland."

Friday, October 21, 2016

Clydebank Post: "Glasgow Drumchapel/Anniesland Councillor Paul Carey has written to Scotland’s transport minister, Humza Yousaf, proposing all children attending secondary schools to have free access to public transport."

Thursday, October 13, 2016

The Washington Post: "Countries around the world are trying to get their greenhouse gas emissions under control — to see them inch down, percentage point by percentage point, from where they stood earlier in the century. If everybody gets on board, and shaves off enough of those percentage points, we just might be able to get on a trajectory to keep the world from warming more than 2 degrees Celsius above the temperature where it stood prior to industrialization.

But if a new study is correct, there’s a big problem: There might be more greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere than we thought. That would mean an even larger need to cut."

Thursday, October 6, 2016

EurActiv.com: "The free-train-ticket antidote against the political malaise affecting Europeans is widely supported inside Parliament by MEPs from the main political groups – including the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the Socialists and Democrats (S&D), the Greens and the Liberals (ALDE).

“I am convinced that the 18th birthday InterRail pass for Europe could become a true lighthouse project for the development of a common European identity in diversity,” said EPP group leader Manfred Weber, who champions the initiative with other MEPs.

Weber, a German Conservative who became an enthusiastic backer of the scheme after he used it to travel around Europe with his cousin, flagged the idea during the State of the Union debate in September."

CommonSpace: "With free travel, I can take part in Glasgow’s economic, social, cultural and political life. It connects me to the rest of the city. I can also travel to Edinburgh and use their buses. The municipally run Lothian Buses contrasts with First Bus's clapped out service.

If free public transport is good for me, why wouldn't it be for all? Many cities worldwide provide this service, including in Europe, Brazil, the United States, China and Israel. "

Saturday, October 1, 2016

Luxemburger Wort: "To mark World Older Persons Day, the OGBL demands that Senior travel cards be made free, suggesting that this will not only encourage more people to use public transport but could be beneficial to the environment."

Plymouth Herald: ""I'll have to walk them to Bodriggy school, which isn't far, but Florence is not the fastest walker. It's going to take 35 minutes and I can't leave Michael at home on his own to catch the taxi as he's only nine years old, so the girls are going to be late every day.

"I am a single parent and I don't drive. I don't have anyone else to help but I am doing my best. I am learning to drive at the moment and once I can drive I am quite happy to take them to school myself.""

Monday, September 19, 2016

The Brussels Times: "Thousands of individuals took advantage of cutting across the region’s 160 square kilometres on foot, by bike or using public transport, all without any major incidents, the police say.

The Royal Family also criss-crossed the streets of the capital by bike. Mr Smet commented, “Car-free Sunday” shows perfectly that a city with fewer cars is both a vibrant and pleasant city.”"

Monday, September 5, 2016

BBC News: "Bus passengers in London will be able to make a second journey for free under a new system being launched by the capital's mayor.
Sadiq Khan said from 12 September a free second journey can be made within an hour of a fare being paid.
His office estimates 30 million bus journeys, currently costing £1.50 per passenger, will be made this way.
An Oyster or contactless payment card will need to be used to take advantage of the Hopper fare."

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

carscoops : "According to The Nordic Page, the Oslo Municipality will go on with its plan to make the country’s capital a car-free city before 2019 by removing parking spaces, thus discouraging car owners to venture in the city’s center. "

Sunday, June 26, 2016

ekathimerini.com: "Fewer and fewer Athens public transport passengers are paying for the service as ticket evasion in the Greek capital is taking on unprecedented proportions.

Transport companies are waiting for the installation of electronic ticketing machines, on which the Transport Ministry has placed all its hopes for a turnaround. But the e-ticket scanners are not expected before mid-2017."

This article takes and accountant's view of fare-dodging. If they took a larger economic view they would see that the fare-dodgers are actually helping the economy.

Saturday, June 18, 2016

wort.lu: "(JB) A Luxembourg student association has called on the government to provide free public transport to all students in the country.

The call by the Association of Luxembourg Students (ACEL) came after it was announced that all secondary school pupils would be granted free access to all forms of public transport in the country, regardless of when they travel, from October 1, 2016."

Saturday, June 11, 2016

wort.lu : "Secondary school students will have free access to all forms of public transport in Luxembourg, starting October 1, 2016.

According to the country's sustainable development and education ministries, the “MyCard élève” travel card will enable holders to travel free of charge not only their routes to and from school, which is currently the case, but they will be able to use it anywhere in the country."

business-review.eu : "Gabriela Firea, the newly elected mayor of Bucharest, said the public transit system in the city will become free for passangers only after some essential conditions are met.

She says that the free surface transit could convince more people to leave their cars at home and contribute to the reduction of traffic congestion.

“I want to underline the fact that I will apply these measures in a reasonable period of time,” said Firea.

The new mayor said that her plan includes the acquisition of 300 new buses and the transformation of the state-owned transit company RATB into a commercial company. She also said that Bucharest will have special bus lanes."

Thursday, May 19, 2016

The Guardian: "Freiburg in Germany has 500km of bike routes, tramways, and a cheap and efficient public transport system. One suburb, Vauban, forbids people to park near their homes and makes car-owners pay €18,000 for a space on the edge of town. In return for living without a car, people are offered cheaper housing, free public transport, and plentiful bicycle spaces."

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Adam Smith Institute: "But, the evidence doesn’t stand up. What underpricing parking actually causes is excessive congestion as the scarcity of parking spaces encourages drivers to cruise around looking for an empty space. Prof. Shoup looked at sixteen different studies, which measured cruising behaviour in the central business districts of major cities. He found that they average time spent cruising for a parking space was around 8 minutes, and that at any one time 30% of cars in the traffic flow were cruising for a parking space."

Sunday, May 8, 2016

ibtimes : "In the first installment of the year of its monthly pedestrian and cycling days, the Champs Elysées in Paris went car-free Sunday, meeting with encouragement from tourists and locals alike. The famous French boulevard, which can hold up to 10 lanes of car traffic at its peak, was quiet of the sounds of honking and free of the smell of exhaust.

"All of Paris should be like this," one local Parisian told Agence-France Presse. "We have to stop poisoning people; we need to open up the city. There should be more public transport and more taxis, but we don't need cars in Paris.""

Saturday, May 7, 2016

HeraldCourier.com: News: "WASHINGTON (AP) — International leaders and local officials on Thursday pledged to work hard to stem the rise of global temperatures by investing in public transportation and electric cars, planting trees and switching to solar energy."

Monday, May 2, 2016

Ipswich Star: "“This could be in the form of car sharing, it could in the form of walking, using public transport, or it would be great if people were inspired to get on their bicycles.”

Mrs Matthew said the main benefits of the initiative would be: people living a healthier lifestyle, a reduction of traffic on the roads, participants forming a better connection with their neighbours, and less pollution in the environment.

The idea was first raised at a Cycle Ipswich meeting at the beginning of this year as members felt they needed to do something to empower people to make a change in the way they travelled."

Monday, April 25, 2016

Greenpeace UK: "We all saw the research last year from King’s College London – commissioned by the GLA and TfL - that nearly 10,000 premature deaths are caused in London every year by exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and fine particulates PM2.5s. This was double the previous estimate, and very worrying.
"

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Independent.ie: "If approved, the measures would remove all east-west traffic from College Green, improving safety for pedestrians and cyclists and the flow of public transport.
This would also allow for the creation of a civic plaza in College Green, from Church Lane to Lower Grafton Street, which it is hoped would become a major tourism attraction.
Green Party councillor Ciaran Cuffe, who chairs the council's Strategic Policy Committee on transport, welcomed the plans for the city centre.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reclaim a civic space in the heart of Dublin city," he said.
"I think it is visionary, necessary and achievable."

DW.COM: "Total cost for the 101 kilometers is estimated at around 184 million euros - that's about 1.8 million euros per kilometer.
Almost three-quarters of this (126.5 million euros) will be used to actually build the roads to the required standards. The rest will be distributed among taxes, planning costs, land purchase and illumination infrastructure."

Bike highways get bikes out of the way of cars to allow more and faster auto traffic. They cost a lot of money and do nothing to reduce sprawl or growth. They actually make autosprawl worse.

Saturday, March 19, 2016

20's Plenty: "20mph limits are being embraced by other large and capital cities in the UK and abroad. The majority of the largest 40 UK authorities have a 20mph policy including other capitals – City of London and 80% of inner London boroughs, Edinburgh and the centre of Belfast. Paris, Milan and Grenoble are examples of European places announcing 30kph (18mph) limits too."

Friday, March 4, 2016

yle.fi : "UUTISET
NEWS
News 4.3.2016 10:12
Turku bus card offer converts thousands of motorists to public transport
It can be tricky to get drivers to give up their cars and hop onto a bus, but an innovative scheme in Turku has helped more than 5,000 motorists swap their car keys for a bus card—free of charge. The special promotion runs to the end of March and is open to anyone who holds a driving license and doesn’t already have a bus card.

Turku has added thousands of new bus users in the last month. Image: Henrietta Lehtinen / Yle
Motorists in the Turku region are able to get a taste of bus travel this spring at no cost. The offer is open to anyone with a driving license who has not previously registered a bus card. If they sign up with Föli, the region’s transport authority, their first card will be loaded with 20 euros worth of travel.

The campaign has been extraordinarily successful since it started at the beginning of February, with some 5,000 motorists signing up to see what it’s like to travel by bus."

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

The Washington Post: "Transport, however, is not the only important use of streets. Streets are also our most important public social spaces. Most cities in Europe now acknowledge the terrible damage cars have done to this use, which is why cities all across Europe are discouraging automobile use in favor of walking, cycling and public transport. This is most clearly illustrated in Oslo, the first European capital to announce that its downtown core will soon be made car-free in order to reduce carbon emissions and improve air quality, as well as to improve conditions for pedestrians and cyclists."

Monday, February 29, 2016

theargus : "Green party activist Andrew Durling said the scheme was calculated by the Department for Transport in 2011 as the worst "value for money" road scheme as well as the worst for CO2 emissions.

Mr Durling, who said local taxpayers would have to foot £68.3 million of costs with the rest coming from central government, added: “East Sussex County Council has squandered, and continues to squander, huge sums of council taxpayers money on just three miles of new road at a time when it is making nearly £40 million of cuts to adult social care services."

Friday, February 19, 2016

CityMetric: "Rising bus fares and the loss of bus routes have not attracted an equivalent level of scrutiny, despite the heroic efforts of organisations like the Campaign for Better Transport and the Campaign to Protect Rural England. Bus services are not, generally, regarded as newsworthy outside of the regional or local press. They rarely occupy the national headlines. They are often passionately supported by campaigners and the passengers who rely on them. But they do not receive the political attention that is proportionate to the number of people who use them."

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Inverse: "And the problem is only getting worse. Brussels boasts a metropolitan population of 1.8 million, which has grown by 1.5 percent each year since 2000. “Traffic congestion in Belgium already costs 1 percent of the GDP annually for the nation,” says Keseru. “If the current situation continues, the city would come to a gridlock with serious economic, environmental, and social consequences. Accessibility of public institutions and workplaces would suffer and economic competitiveness would be impaired.” Couple worsening traffic with environmental degradation, and he fears companies and residents will flee the city."

Thursday, January 21, 2016

The Guardian: "Travel outside London, however, and Britain’s deregulated bus system reveals itself as the source of widespread, justified disgruntlement – an overpriced, inefficient, poor-quality mess. According to a report to be published this week, since deregulation in 1986 – unleashed with the promise that “more people would travel” – bus trips in big cities outside London have collapsed from 2bn to 1bn a year. In London, on the other hand, where everything from how much we pay to which routes exist is decided by the mayor and Transport for London, bus use since the 1980s has gone in the opposite direction: from around 1bn to more than 2bn trips a year. Britain’s bus privatisation disaster is a story of profit before need, and a discomfiting tale for those who believe the private sector automatically trumps the public realm."

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Winnipeg Free Press: "LISBON, Portugal - Portugal's new Socialist government is making good on its promise to roll back the previous government's privatizations, with public transport companies first in line."